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The Cartier's LOVE trade mark "Can anyone have a monopoly over love?" This is an interesting and deep question ... and  perhaps  even more so in a trade mark context, as the Singapore IP Office recently discovered.  In a  decision  issued on 20 December last, this IP Office had to consider this very question in the context of an opposition filed by Cartier:  More precisely, can a trader prevent other traders from registering a trade mark which includes the word “LOVE” for use on jewellery?  Cartier filed an opposition, relying on its earlier 'LOVE' figurative trade mark (in which the O is replaced with the device of Cartier's iconic slotted screw head e the E is in lower case) for,  inter alia , jewellery. The opposition related to MoneyMax Jewellery's application to register the signs below as Singapore trade marks for jewellery in Class 14, and retail and other services relating to jewellery in Class 35: ...

Overturning the decisions  at first instance   [IPKat report  here  and  here ]  and on  appeal   [IPKat report  here ] ,  this morning the UK Supreme Court has  ruled  that the ISPs (internet access providers) do NOT have to bear the costs of implementation of the injunction (in this case, a blocking injunction) issued against them pursuant to  section 37(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 (SCA) , requiring them to block access to a number of websites making available for sale goods infringing trade mark rights. As  explained in this post , the appeal to the UK Supreme Court focused indeed on the issue of cost allocation.  The previous episodes Although Kitchin LJ (writing for the Court of Appeal) acknowledged that " the ISPs are not guilty of any wrongdoing”, nor do they owe a common law duty of care to take reasonable care to ensure that their services are not used by the operators o...

The possibility to seek an injunction against an intermediary whose services are used by third parties to infringe an IP right has proved an important tool in the hands of rightholders, including in the online context.  The reason why the role of intermediaries is central is because, as Recital 59 in the preamble to the  InfoSoc Directive   [but the same is true also for the  Enforcement Directive ]  explains,  “[i]n the digital environment, in particular, the services of intermediaries may increasingly be used by third parties for infringing activities. In many cases such intermediaries are  best placed  to bring such infringing activities to an end.” However, how should responsibility for the costs of injunctions be allocated?  [ here  are some slides I prepared, and  here 's a more detailed discussion] The UK approach to costs In the UK, since the first copyright blocking injunction granted in  ...

Readers with a fancy for online IP enforcement will remember that last July the Court of Appeal of England and Wales issued its  decision  in  Cartier and Others v BSkyB and Others  [ here ] , in which it upheld the 2014  decision  of Arnold J in the High Court  [ here  and  here ]  that blocking injunctions are also available in trade mark cases under the general power recognised by  s37(1)  of the Senior Courts Act 1981 (SCA) .  This provision states that “ [t]he High Court may by order (whether interlocutory or final) grant an injunction … in all cases in which it appears to be just and convenient to do so .” The missed implementation of Article 11 of the Enforcement Directive UK Government, in fact, implemented Article 8(3) of the  InfoSoc Directive  into UK law by inserting  s97A  into the CDPA, and UK courts have ever since developed a consistent and thoughtful jurisprudence on the app...

Inside the box: better a ring or a blocking injunction? Blocking injunctions in trade mark cases? Since the landmark 2014 decision of Arnold J  in  Cartier   [ here ,  here ,  here ]   (currently under appeal: the appeal will be heard on 13 April) it appears that indeed this type of measure is also available to trade mark owners. IPKat readers will remember that the reason why this was uncertain is because - unlike what happened in relation to Article 8(3) of the    InfoSoc Directive   (transposed into UK law through the adoption of  s97A  of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA))  - UK Government did not take any measures to transpose explicitly the third sentence of Article 11 of the  Enforcement Directive  into its own legal system. This provision states that: " Member States shall also ensure that rightholders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are...